ConocoPhillips also stayed in-house earlier this year for the $1.29 billion sale of its Vietnamese assets to British and French oil company Perenco. The Am Law Daily reported last year that Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, which represented predecessor company Phillips Petroleum on its $15.6 billion merger with Conoco in 2002, is once again advising ConocoPhillips on its plan to split itself into two publicly traded companies. (Wachtell also handled ConocoPhillips’s $3.4 billion sale of its stake in Lukoil back to the Russian oil company in 2010.)
Kelly, the company’s general counsel, is a former corporate associate at Wachtell who went on to become a partner at Sidley Austin and Zelle Hoffmann Voelbel & Mason. In July, Harvard Law School professor Jody Freeman was named to the board of ConocoPhillips.
Finally, Canada’s second-largest integrated oil company, Imperial Oil Limited, announced Wednesday that it would acquire a 50 percent stake in Calgary-based Celtic Exploration, which Exxon Mobil is in the process of purchasing.
The Am Law Daily reported last month on the roles snagged by Canadian firms Blake, Cassels & Graydon and Borden Ladner Gervais for Exxon Mobil’s $3.2 billion acquisition of Celtic. The deal is currently awaiting shareholder and regulatory approval, and now Imperial, about 70 percent of which is owned by Exxon Mobil, is seeking to pick up its 50 percent stake in Celtic after the previous transaction closes, according to The Canadian Press.
Celtic’s corporate secretary is Borden Ladner energy partner William Guinan in Calgary. Guinan, who also serves as an independent director for Celtic, did not respond to a request for comment on the names of the lawyers handling the latest transaction involving Celtic.
Brian Livingston, general counsel and corporate secretary for Imperial Oil, also did not respond to a request for comment about its potential external legal advisers. Reuters reports that Imperial Oil’s bid for half of Celtic might speed Canadian approvals of the target company’s proposed sale to Exxon Mobil, although regulators up north already have their hands full with several large oil and gas mergers.
One of those deal under review—a $15.1 billion acquisition of Canadian oil producer Nexen by The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC)—represents the largest-ever purchase of a foreign company by a Chinese buyer. U.S. regulators are also currently evaluating the landmark transaction, according to The Deal.
